Few things are as stressful as learning you’ll be tested for marijuana within the next few days for a job interview or due to other miscellaneous circumstances. The worst part of the matter is that marijuana can stay in someone’s system for weeks after they’ve last consumed the drug, so drug tests aren’t even very good indicators as to how recently someone has consumed or how serious someone’s consumption of the drug is. This long elimination time for THC metabolites is the reason sites like https://thcdetox.biz/ exist. But why does marijuana stay in the system for so long?

Nearly every other illegal drug that can be consumed is out of a user’s system within a matter of days, why is what is arguably the softest drug out there out there to be consumed stuck in the body for such a serious amount of time?

A simple look into the drug’s chemistry is the first look you should take when answering this question.

Most drugs are water soluble, meaning their metabolites (what the body turns the drug into after processing it) will be quickly excreted via urination with a few days of ingesting them.

THC and many of its metabolites, however, are fat soluble. This means that they can become deposited in the stores of fat around the body and then when that fat is later burned by the body some is released back, making it a constant stream of detectable THC. Not enough to have any meaningful psychoactive effect, but more than enough for someone to test positive in a urinalysis drug test.

Somewhere in the realm of 60-65% of THC is actually excreted from the body in the feces, with the rest going to sweat, saliva, and fat deposits within the body. These other methods are primarily dependent on individual metabolism differences in a human being when it comes to how fast the drug will be completely eliminated from the body.

People with a higher percentage of body fat have more fat for THC to bind to and make a temporary home in, so those with a higher body fat percentages are more likely to test positive for THC after significant amounts of time has passed, as residual THC may be released for some time due to being stored in fat cells.

The genetic makeup of an individual is the next major hurdle as far as naturally detoxing from THC. Some people simply have a slower metabolism than others and will retain anything from THC to vitamin C for longer periods of time before it is removed by natural processes.

Stimulating the metabolism regardless of genetic makeup is a surefire way to accelerate the marijuana detox process. Things like drinking lots of water, exercising a lot, and ensuring you go to the bathroom frequently can help to remove more and more THC from your body.

So, at the end of the day, the reason why THC hangs around your body for so long is because it binds strongly to fat cells within the body in a way that very few others drugs of abuse do.